For sale is a Garmin 480/Apollo CNX80 GPS/WAAS/NAV/Com with Tray, rack and connectors. Screen in good shape.

$2,800 no trades.

Price drop.

This is a smoking good deal at the new asking price particularly when you gauge it against the capability. It was my choice a few years ago and I paid a lot more.

I love mine too!

The whole last Apollo series, CNX-80, SL30 & MX-20 were way ahead of their time. They clearly had done the headwork and they were first out of the box with WAAS capability. It was a very cool set up in 2018, and when you consider this was done in 2002-03, and introduced in 2004, it's even more impressive.

Had Garmin not purchased them, I'm sure they would have followed up with similarly very cool stuff.

Hands down, the Apollo CNX80 was the most advanced and capable GPS navcom available in its day. It's been surpassed by the much newer GTN and IFD boxes but not by much. AFaIK, Apollo's main problem was insufficient capital resources, if they'd been solvent the CNX80's successor would probably still be the best navcom today.

Price reduced.

My Apollo stack was installed in August of 2003.
CNX80, MX20, SL30, SL70R.
The CNX80 has received a new battery.
The MX20 has been replaced with a “As removed” unit due to screen issues.
The transponder has been updated for ADSB.
The SL30 just keeps going.
The system just works!
I don’t think that I would pay for a new installation on a 20 year old box, but I’d certainly slide a used one in to an existing install.
A GTN750 won’t get you lower minimums or go any faster.
A CNX80/Garmin 480 is a good box.

What about updates, are they still available? Who supports this unit (Jeppeson or Garmin)?

Jepp does the database updates. No special hardware required, any CF reader will do.

Had the whole panel, and I think my DB costs for the -80 and MX20 was $750/yr at the end (2021). Had two sets of CF cards, so one stayed in the plane and one for home and I'd just swap them out. The MX20 was set up for chartview (and it would pull the correct chart up depending on approach selected), but it was WAY expensive and clunky to use on the MX20. I'm usually one to check all the option buttons, and even I couldn't see the point in that.

In the rare cases you were using VORs, it would display the VOR on the MX20, as well as the radials selected, and would track with what you set in the HSI. Even the way the little SL30 was integrated with the stack was impressive. It would talk to the CNX80 and pre-populate with NAV & COM freqs like navaids and ATIS and whatnot.

Don't get me wrong, it had its quirks, but they were relatively few. Skipping a hold on an approach (HILPT) required you to pay attention, and hit the SUSP button at the right time, and if you selected vectors to final, it would just dump all your waypoints prior to FAF.

But, like most "power user" setups, you needed to know what you were about. You couldn't just mash buttons and expect a good result.

Best,
Rich

I worked out a couple ways to skip the HILPT that could be accomplished well before reaching the holding fix and pretty much everyone learned to activate a leg aligned with the FAC instead of selecting VTF. Like you said, this wasn't a good box for anyone who never gets beyond going direct to the next fix but if you were willing to learn it well it did a great job.